“We were the only ones who had fun,” Kimmy agreed, wiping a smear of cheese salt off her blazer.
“It’s not about the song, Lu,” Kimmy typed, thumbs flying on her pink BlackBerry Curve. “It’s about the brand .” 2010 kimmy kimm & lulu chu
Their project that July was the mall’s “Teen Talent Meltdown,” a karaoke contest held in the atrium between a Cinnabon and a Spencer’s Gifts. They weren’t singers, but they didn’t need to be. They had a two-part harmony on “Love Story” by Taylor Swift that they’d perfected in Lulu’s basement, singing into hairbrushes while the wall-mounted AC dripped onto a pile of Seventeen magazines. “We were the only ones who had fun,”
On the day of the contest, they showed up in opposite ends of the mall food court. Kimmy wore a crisp blazer over a graphic tee that said “Hustle.” Lulu wore a tie-dyed hoodie and a top hat she’d found at a thrift store. For a long, terrible minute, they just stared at each other. They weren’t singers, but they didn’t need to be
Then Lulu burst out laughing. “You look like a junior stockbroker.”
In the hazy, glitter-glued summer of 2010, Kimmy Kimm and Lulu Chu ruled the narrow hallway of Westbrook High’s freshman wing. Not with cruelty, but with an unspoken, two-person empire built on shared ringtones and identical butterfly hair clips.